Was Man planned as he is, or might he have been different? Well the Neanderthals were different; and informed opinion seems to be that we are not descended from them; indeed the two races lived side by side until the Neanderthals were wiped out. Nor are we descended from Pithecanthropus, rather from a cousin of his, who unfortunately has left behind no fossil remains.
Yet Nature has reached Man by a circuitous route; other creatures have dominated the earth before us. The dinosaurs were dominant for a long time; many of them were small, but a few species were so vast and terrible that Man would have had no chance against them. Yet they could never have evolved into Man, however long Nature had allowed them. Every species, except Man, has apparently gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac, from which there was no possibility of retreat. Man has so far avoided this mistake; but dear me, he shows every capacity to repeating the mistakes of his friends in the animal world, most obviously in the adoption of intolerant single faith creeds.
So I opt for the belief, because it can be nothing more, that God created Space, Time, Matter in the beginning; and potentially all the problems of Nature were already solved in that instant. What happened before? It is meaningless to ask. You might as well ask, “In War, is the plan of battle blue or green?” Again Meister Eckhard says it is wrong to call God good, because God is the source of all goodness; and it is wrong to describe Him in terms of what he created. You can know God; at least countless men and women have claimed to know Him, and to have an indwelling with the God who lived in their imaginations. But assuming this claim is true, and I for one would question such a claim with the greatest reluctance, it would be very foolish for the individual concerned to ask God to explain what the relationship amounted to. It would be like Adam in that lovely story eating the apple in the Garden of Eden. I believe, because it cannot be more, that you can know God, but you cannot know about God. There is no insight into Eternity, if it exists outside space and time, except possibly in Hell. Although Moses says in Deuteronomy that one should love God with all the heart, the mind, the strength; the psalmist says that it is the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, not the love of God. Both are correct. You cannot know about God, only about His creation and His promises; and those who claim to know about Him are deluding themselves. And even if we know a bit about the earthly Jesus, how much do we know about the Risen Christ?